Firms ban non-essential travel

Australian companies have banned non-essential corporate travel and are giving Indonesian-based staff the option to return home after the latest bomb blast.

Companies with Indonesian operations contacted by The Age yesterday said they would review security - already heightened after the Bali bombing last October - and encourage staff to avoid all potential terrorist targets, including areas popular with foreigners.

Some companies had postponed travel for the immediate future and one, Novus Petroleum, ordered three Sydney staff, en route to Jakarta for an operational meeting, to continue on to Singapore, Novus's Peter Kirkham said.

Leigh Minehan, chief operating officer at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said several of its 60 Australian staff had apartments in the Marriott complex but none had been home at the time of the blast.

PwC staff due to fly to Indonesia today have been told to wait.

New Zealand dairy co-operative Fonterra had 29 staff, including one Melbourne-based New Zealander, staying at the Marriott. All were treated for minor injuries including cuts.

A Fonterra spokesman said each would return home but many faced delays because their passports and travel documents were inside the hotel, which authorities had cordoned off.

A spokesman for Perth-based Clough Engineering, Peter Collins, said its 12 Australian expatriate staff had been advised to keep a low profile and avoid Jakarta's central business district.

BHP Billiton said staff and their families had been accounted for.

Mayne Group, which owns and operates two Jakarta hospitals, has given its four expatriate staff the option to return home - as it did after the Bali bombings. "It's something we take pretty seriously," said spokesman Rob Tassie.